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Humanities and Social Sciences Library > Collections > Photography Collection > New York Street Photography William Gedney (American, 1932–1989)Born in Albany and a graduate of Pratt Institute, where he later taught, William Gedney remained relatively unknown outside a small circle of artists and curators until the 2000 retrospective exhibition of his work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, a Fulbright Fellowship in 1969, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1975. Gedney lived for more than twenty years on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, and the city of New York remained one of his favorite subjects. In many ways a street photographer in the classic sense of the term, Gedney often worked in series, some less traditional than others. One project, which he never completed, was to photograph New York’s gay community on only one day each year: the June rally and parade commemorating the Stonewall riots that launched the gay liberation movement. Another project, as impressive in its breadth as the former in its restraint, was to photograph the street at night throughout his career and in multiple locations. Together, these two projects perhaps capture Gedney’s psychologically complex conception of photography, which he characterized in one journal entry both as reflective of the photographer’s personality, and as a possible projection of it—a process of “wish fulfillment.” “[W]hat am I trying to accomplish in ‘The Night’? A group of pictures of the essential strivings of man, the mystery of his being and death. His lost groping in darkness to discover himself, his longing and desire, never satisfied, restless—black representing the mystery of existence, black will be the binding tone.” William Gedney Brooklyn, NY, 1972 2 gelatin silver prints
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